A Pretty Rural Amusement For Lovers." Decidedly; All This In
The Romantic Woodlands Of Sillery, A Sad Place It Must Be Confessed,
When Even Boarding School Misses, Were They To Ramble Thus, Could
Scarcely Escape Contracting The Scarlet Fever.
Here goes another
extract:
-
(BELLA FERMOR TO MISS RIVERS. LONDON)
"Sillery, Sept. 20th, (1766) - 10 o'clock.
"Ah! we are vastly to be pitied; no beaux at all at the general's,
only about six to one; a pretty proportion, and what I hope always to
see. We - the ladies I mean - drink chocolate with the general to-
morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not know Quebec
again. Nothing but smiling faces now: all gay as never was - the
sweetest country in the world. Never expect to see me in England
again; one is really somebody here. I have been asked to dance by only
twenty-seven. ..."
Ah! who would not forgive the frolicsome Bella all her flirtations?
But before we dismiss this pleasant record of other days, yet another
extract, and we have done.
(BELLA FERMOR TO LUCY RIVERS)
"Sillery - Eight in the evening.
"Absolutely, Lucy, I will marry a savage and turn squaw (a pretty soft
name for an Indian Princess!) Never was anything so delightful as
their lives. They talk of French husbands, but commend me to an Indian
one, who lets his wife ramble five hundred miles without asking where
she is going.
"I was sitting after dinner, with a book, in a thicket of hawthorn
near the beach, when a loud laugh called my attention to the river,
when I saw a canoe of savages making to the shore. There were six
women and two or three children, without one man amongst them. They
landed and tied the canoe to the root of a tree, and finding out the
most agreeable shady spot amongst the bushes with which the beach was
covered, (which happened to be very near me) made a fire, on which
they laid some fish to broil, and fetching water from the river, sat
down on the grass to their frugal repast. I stole softly to the house,
and ordering a servant to bring some wine and cold provisions,
returned to my squaws. I asked them in French if they were of Lorette,
they shook their heads - I repeated the question in English, when the
eldest of the women told me they were not, that their country was on
the borders of New England, that their husbands being on a hunting
party in the woods, curiosity and the desire to see their brethren,
the English, who had conquered Quebec, had brought them up the great
river, down which they should return as soon as they had seen
Montreal. She courteously asked me to sit down and eat with them,
which I complied with and produced my part of the feast. We soon
became good company, and brightened the chain of friendship with two
bottles of wine, which put them in such spirits that they danced,
sung, shook me by the hand, and grew so fond of me that I began to be
afraid I should not easily get rid of them.
"Adieu! my father is just come in and has brought some company with
him from Quebec to supper.
"Yours ever,
"A. FERMOR."
KIRK ELLA
"This villa, erected in 1850 on the north side of the St. Lewis road,
facing Cataracoui, affords a striking exemplification of how soon taste
and capital can transform a wilderness into a habitation combining every
appliance of modern refinement and rustic adornment. It covers about
eighty-two acres, two thirds of which are green meadows, wheat fields,
&c., the remainder, plantations, gardens and lawn. The cottage itself is a
plain, unpretending structure, made more roomy by the recent addition of a
dining room, &c., in rear. On emerging from the leafy avenue, the visitor
notices two parterres of wild flowers - kalmias, trilliums, etc., -
transplanted from the neighboring wood, with the rank, moist soil of the
Gomin marsh to derive nourishment from, they appear to thrive. In rear of
these parterres a granite rockery, festooned with ferns, wild
violets, &c., raises its green gritty, rugged outline. This pretty
European embellishment we would much like to see more generally introduced
in our Canadian landscape; it is strikingly picturesque. The next object
which catches the eye is the conservatory in which are displayed the most
extensive collection of exotics in Sillery. In the centre of some fifty
large camellia shrubs there is a magnificent specimen of the fimbriata
variety - white leaves with a fringed border; it stands twelve feet high
with corresponding breadth. When it is loaded with blossoms in the winter
the spectacle is exquisitely beautiful. In the rear of the conservatory
are a vinery, a peach and apricot house; like the conservatory, all span-
roofed and divided off in several compartments, heated by steam-pipes and
furnaces, with stop-cocks to retard or accelerate vegetation at will. On
the 31st May, when we visited the establishment, we found the black
Hamburg grapes the size of cherries; the peaches and apricots
correspondingly advanced; the cherries under glass quite over. One of the
latest improvements is a second flower garden to the west of the house, in
the English landscape style. In rear of this garden to the north, there
existed formerly a cedar swamp, which deep subsoil draining with tiles has
converted into a grass meadow of great beauty; a belt of pine, spruce,
tamarack, and some deciduous trees, thinned towards the south-west, let in
a glimpse of the St. Lawrence and the high-wooded Point Levi shores,
shutting out the view of the St. Lewis road, and completely overshadowing
the porter's lodge; out-houses, stables, root-house, paddocks and barns
are all on a correspondingly extensive scale. We have here another
instance of the love of country life which our successful Canadian
merchant likes to indulge in; and we can fancy, judging from our own case,
with what zest Mr. Burstall the portly laird of Kirk Ella, after a
toilsome day in his St. Peter street counting-house, hurried home to revel
in the rustic beauty which surrounds his dwelling." Such was Kirk Ella in
1865.
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